


Toasted

by FrenchRoast



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 19:54:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6871174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchRoast/pseuds/FrenchRoast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompts: Animal potion, ‘Tomorrow Will Be Kinder’, Pocketwatch</p><p>A/N: Set sometime in late season 2<br/>My first entry written for the 2016 Rumbelle Showdown</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toasted

_How did this even happen?_ Rumple wondered to himself as he sat behind bars, surrounded by dozens of other animals who looked very much like him. He was fluffier than most of them, but cats don’t vary too much in shape.  He turned his head around; his black and orange tail was swishing back and forth, practically an entity unto itself. The rest of him was colored similarly, a hodge-podge of black and orange and white, with stripes on the orange. He was a calico. A calico identical to Toast, the one that belonged to his next-door neighbor and sometime girlfriend, Miss French.  The cat that always tried to steal his cheese dip when Belle invited him over for tacos.

Something had gone horribly wrong with that last potion.

Instead of giving him some much needed rest and relaxation last evening, he’d turned into a cat, and immediately been taken over by the cat’s instincts. Rumple was halfway into town before he got enough of a grip on himself to stop fleeing from the flood of scents and the whoosh of cars swerving in the road. Just as he’d begun to realize what he had done to himself, he walked into Granny’s trap and been unceremoniously dropped off for shots and a spay or neuter. Rumple had thought last night was bad, that tomorrow would be better, but thus far, he was wrong. They’d already flea-dipped him, and now they weren’t feeding him, probably to get him ready for surgery later in the day.

So now he was sitting, here in the animal shelter, in a cage that was going to be much too small if the potion wore off before he could escape. And if he couldn’t escape before the potion wore off, he was going to have a very unpleasant surgery.

“MEOW,” he shouted, to no avail. The other cats didn’t understand him, and Jefferson didn’t recognize him in this cat form. He was too preoccupied affixing tiny hats to the various cats sitting in a petting area and then photographing them to notice Rumple.  One was a kitten, and he had on a detective’s hat; Jefferson had posed the little ginger tabby with a pocket watch sitting under one paw.

Even Rumple had to admit it was adorable.

“David, there’s only 5 cats here,” Jefferson called through the door that led out to the shelter’s lobby. “I need another if the calendar’s going to be equal cats and dogs.  I need a cat that looks good in a sorcerer’s hat.”

David Nolan, with that too-content grin on his face, stepped in from the lobby. “Sorry, Jefferson, but I’m not sorry. Your sorcerer adopted out this morning,” he said. “Granny brought in a couple of new ones I haven’t had a chance to look at. Maybe one of them would work?”

“Which ones?”

David walked over, approaching Rumple. Now! This was his chance!

“MROW!” Rumple shouted, not even sure what he was trying to say other than “you idiot excuse for a prince, get me out of this bloody cage” or something to that effect. “MEOOW!”

“Well here’s a talkative little cali—hey wait a second,” David said, peering into Rumple’s cage. “How did you end up in here, little Miss French Toast?”

Rumple glared at him. Miss? _Miss?_ How dare he mistake Rumple for—oh, right. He was Toast, wasn’t he? And this was going to be his way out.

 _Oh, bloody damn_ , Rumple realized as David began to open the cage. _Toast adores Charming._  Escaping was not going to be a piece of cake. It was not even going to be some middling dessert Granny served up on special. It was going to be the equivalent of the fairies’ fruit cake: breathtakingly awful.

Rumple was going to have to snuggle David Nolan. And not just snuggle him--for Rumple had seen how much love that damn cat had for the prince--but snuggle him _good_.

Rumple briefly closed his eyes and mustered what little courage he had, knowing he had to get out of this cage if he was ever going to get out of the larger cage that was Storybrooke. And to do that, he had to let David Nolan’s arms come within scratching and biting distance, and yet not strike. _Do it for Baelfire_ , he chanted. _For Baelfire_.

All Jefferson and David heard as David extracted the cat from the cage was a series of pitiful meows. “Toastie must have lost her collar,” David said. He snuggled tightly, and after rubbing his face into "Toast's" fur, he kissed the calico on the forehead. Rumple thought he might pass out from the shame of it, but his cat instincts were enjoying it. Unintentionally, he began to purr as David stroked him. When Rumple realized what he was doing, he started to squirm to get free. “Can you watch her while I call Belle? She must be worried sick. Granny brought Toast and the other cat in last night.” He handed Toast!Rumple to Jefferson and fled the room. Jefferson, who was also an acquaintance of Toast, held the cat up.

“Something…you look just like Toast, but something’s off,” he muttered. “Of course, being trapped does mess with you, I know that well enough.” Jefferson carried Rumple over to the play area with the other five cats, all of whom had shed their various hats by now.  He held up the little purplish-blue sorcerer’s hat, covered in tiny gold stars. Before Rumple could so much as meow, Jefferson had slipped the hat on him and snapped three photos.

Rumple pawed at the hat, knowing he looked ridiculous, even if it wasn’t his own appearance. Dammit, not even Toast deserved this kind of cruelty, preposterous photos splashed over calendars that could end up on display anywhere.

David returned before Rumple could get the hat all the way off. David, seeing Rumple’s distress, promptly repositioned the sorcerer’s hat atop Rumple’s head.

“You look good, Toast,” he said with a laugh.

Rumple made a silent vow to glue a dunce cap onto David Nolan’s head the first chance he got. He was still deciding what kind of hat Jefferson was going to get.

“So Belle’s on her way over?”

“Weirdest thing—she swears Toast was home last night. But she’s coming anyway, because Toast wasn’t coming when she called for her,” David replied. Rumple added another vow to his previous two: to feed Toast all the cheese dip that cat could ever want, as a thanks for not coming when Belle called. “Did you get the photos you need for the calendar?”

Jefferson nodded. “I can help you put the cats back while you wait for Belle if you want. I might take the kitten home to Grace. Her birthday is next week.”

“If you want, you can take her sister, too. She’s a grey tabby, very sweet. They’re easier in pairs. We’ve got the mom, too.” They continued to talk cats as they put the other cats back into their cages, and Rumple took the opportunity to jump into the corner by the door.

They’d just replaced the last of the cats that weren’t Toast!Rumple when Belle knocked on the door.

“Come on in. Toast is in here somewhere,” David shouted so she could hear through the door.

Belle walked inside, careful to shut the door quickly—too quickly for Rumple to escape. He would’ve made it, but he felt a little odd. Kinda woozy. Kinda itchy. So he wasn’t as fast as he could’ve been. Belle snatched him up, first by his scruff, but quickly supported under his bottom. He curled his fluffy tail to cover his belly.

“Toast! What are you doing here? And without your new blue collar, too.”

“So it is Toast?”

Belle held Toast!Rumple up. “Looks just like her. She seems nervous, but if she’s been trapped in here for hours, I can understand it. My poor girl,” she said, clutching Toast!Rumple to her chest.

There were worse places to be.

Unfortunately, approximately 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds had passed since Rumple drank the potion that had magically turned him into Toast. A second later, Belle dropped a now-naked Rumplestiltskin to the hard concrete floor of the shelter.  He disappeared in a cloud of smoke, but they all knew what they had seen.

“So…I don’t think that was Toast,” Belle said after a few moments.


End file.
